


Tinder and Flame; or, Things Left Unsaid

by Prisoner0001 (TooHotchInTheHottub)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Poetic, Things Unsaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2628950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooHotchInTheHottub/pseuds/Prisoner0001
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My first Cherik fic ever. <br/>More a character study.<br/>Not an involved plot, but there are MANY MANY feels.<br/>I would greatly appreciate feedback, particularly in regards to characterisation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tinder and Flame; or, Things Left Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> Be gentle with me. I would greatly appreciate feedback as this is my first foray into Cherik, and my first posted fic in four years.

The magnetic fields lapped at his skin, caressing Erik wherever he went, like the mother he had lost. Erik found both comfort and grief in his power. The dichotomy was almost unbearable. In the end he had scrunched them both together, crushing them until they became a hot rage. Then he had lost himself in that. Erik was passion.

Sometimes misdirected, always fierce and powerful.

He was sensual and terrifying and Charles had been drawn to him like the proverbial moth.

####

Charles Xavier was filled with quiet disappointment and a need for control. Charles fed both of these emotions into the furnace of hope that burned at his core. He seemed passive on the outside, but his fierce protectiveness of Raven, his idealism and his quick wit belied the peaceful façade.

Charles too was centred by a fire. Perhaps it was inevitable that Erik and Charles would burn each other out.

####

On the ship, Charles had been able to feel Erik; his desperation and determination crooned out a siren’s song that led Charles to the edge of the boat, and into the cool water.

He could feel the courage of Erik’s conviction, could see snippets of a long-dead mother, could smell the camps of Erik’s childhood, could feel the ash rain down on his skin from decades ago. Could feel his stomach churn at the greasy residue it left in its wake, and the terrible certainty that the ash was all that remained of the people who had been herded from the train. Could feel that shameful heat of jealousy that they had, in a way, escaped the razor-wire wrapped hell. Could feel the despairing belief that this place was eternal, and that there would never be an escape for him.

Charles, minutes before he met Erik, and months before he realised it, had, to a small degree, taken on Erik’s suffering.

Charles had known, if only for a second, what it was like to have and then lose a mother. Charles had felt the fear and anguish of being targeted for being different, the intense guilt of survival and the manic, intoxicating energy of revenge. Charles had looked into Erik, into the abyss that the other man had become, and had fallen.

Charles had descended into the darkness of Erik, had willingly slid into those shadows and sought out the bright spark in the centre of it all.

Charles had jumped into the water, he had descended into the metaphorical darkness, and he had unwittingly fallen in love.

####

The mind that Erik had felt tugging at him got closer as the burn tore at his lungs. Erik knew that there was no more air, that the darkness spotting the edge of his vision was something more permanent than night. Then all he had known were those hands wrapped around him. That thin body and that gentle voice; the pain of the air ripping back into greedy lungs.

It hurt to be pulled back into the world of the living, into another’s bosom. With a stranger’s hands clasped over his heart Erik was forced back into the world. With three words, Charles Xavier broke through Erik’s armour and caressed his soft, long-forgotten humanity.

“You’re not alone.”

At first Erik wanted to believe Charles, wanted to think that somehow, somewhere, somewhen Erik could have a family. A home. He wanted it so badly, but the more he fell into the rhythm of protective guidance with the younger mutants and the softer, more intimate whatever-this-is that he had with Charles, the more Erik feared losing it all.

The more he feared those that feared him.

Before Charles, Erik had drawn blood with a hate-filled vendetta; after Charles, Erik was willing to commit a million more atrocities, willing to burn the world, for love. For his fellow mutants. For Charles.

Erik Lensherr motivated by love was a terrible force to be reckoned with.

Charles, for his part, could see the lost and terrified nature within his new friend. He could see the horrible drives within him. Charles knew that rather than being the outward, steady, considered, steely man he projected, Erik was really a messy ball of conflicting emotions, a shivering boy hunting for love, a man confused with what could happen in the world and a wide-eyed idealist hoping for better but willing to do the worst.

He knew that Erik was a survivor.   
He knew that Erik was flawed.   
He knew that Erik was just a man.

Neither of them knew that they were destined to dance around each other. In the many different lives they lived, in the many possible dimensions, they were always destined to stoke each other’s passions. Through friendship, recriminations, battles, and, most of all, through the words they never quite managed to say.   
Never. Not once. Not in any universe, did they ever manage to get around to it.   
Three different words that could have saved them both.   
Three words that might not have amounted to enough.   
Three words that never got the chance to see.   
Three words even more powerful than the ones Charles had said as they floated in the water.

Charles could have turned to Erik on the beach, before he felt to metal slice through Shaw, before he felt the bullet smash into his spine, before he felt nothing, he could have frozen the daylight, gazed into those grey eyes and said it. He could have begged Erik to stay. Erik might have.

Erik could have said it standing in the kitchen in the Pentagon, or in the elevator, dabbing at his lip where Charles had hit him. He could have whispered it out. He almost did. Charles might have stopped. Might have understood. Might have saved them both.

They could have said it over chess.

Charles could have screamed it out of the window in Paris. He could have added to the melodrama, he could have stopped Erik in his tracks.

Erik could have said it on the White House Lawn. He could have declared it in front of the cameras. In front of the president.

Instead they avoided those words but declared it to each other a thousand tiny ways.

“Shaw’s got friends, you could do with some.” _You shouldn’t be lonely, Erik. Not when I’m here._

“Erik. You decided to stay.” _I hoped you would. I think I need you_.

“What an adorable lab rat you make, Charles.” _I love you_.   
“Don’t spoil this for me, Erik.” _Why do you smell so good? You drive me mad_.   
“I’ve been a lab rat. I know one when I see one.” _You, somehow, understand me. You make me feel safe_.

They said it in every conversation they ever had. In many, many more that never were.

Only once, in a time that might not have happened, did they come close. As they waited for Logan to save them all, as the Sentinels battered at the door and Erik sat propped on the floor, the metal he should have controlled ultimately betraying him, they had looked upon each other. Waiting for death.   
At the end they had declared their foolishness.   
But not their feelings.  
Not out loud.   
Finally, Erik found his courage. With his last breath Erik put the words into Charles’ mind. Charles took them with a silent regret. _It was always you Charles. In the place between rage and serenity, that’s where I kept you. Without you I’d have been little more than a spoon-bender. I wish I had been better. I wish I had been the man you deserved._

_Erik, you were the man I always wanted_.

Then the timeline had shifted. Charles no longer sat looking, unseeing at the Sentinel, his mind searching in vain for Erik in his final seconds.  
Erik on the floor, dead but not yet growing cold.   
Charles was in Westchester, surrounded by students, in a world where he still had a choice.   
Erik’s lungs filled anew with air in a world where he had a chance to do the right thing.

In a world where they still hadn’t said those words.   
And maybe never would.


End file.
